Brainlord’s Petition to Change the EULA

[razark]

1 hour ago, MaltYebisu said:

KSP 1.4.1 sends data to api.redshell.io, cdp.cloud.unity3d.com and config.uca.cloud.unity3d.com.

So, it's calling out to Steam tracking and Unity?  It doesn't even try to contact TakeTwo?

[Ed Jaws]

I'm pretty dumb so let me ask, does this:

Quote

Please note that the EULA, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Terms”) will be changed on March 6, 2018. Please read the agreements. Your acceptance of the Terms after March 6th is required in order to retain future access to your purchases, fully participate on kerbalspaceprogram.com, and play Kerbal Space Program.

mean I can't run the 1.3.1 executable on my Linux machine if I don't agree to the Terms? Or do I need a lawyer to tell me what to do.

Obviously I agreed to be able to post here but if that's the case I'll be deleting KSP.

[steve_v]

10 hours ago, razark said:

It doesn't even try to contact TakeTwo?

Nope. Like I said, standard Unity analytics.
The spyware allegations are hilarious, if only for this reason.
It's pretty obvious that those making the most noise are the same that have done the least technical investigation into what is actually going on.

 

6 hours ago, Ed Jaws said:

I can't run the 1.3.1 executable on my Linux machine if I don't agree to the Terms?

What are they going to do about it, come to your house and delete it for you?

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 minute ago, steve_v said:

Nope. Like I said, standard Unity analytics.
The spyware allegations are hilarious, if only for this reason.
It's pretty obvious that those making the most noise are the same that have done the least technical investigation into what is actually going on.

 

What are they going to do about it, come to your house and delete it for you?

We are not suggesting it is happening right now.

[steve_v]

2 minutes ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

We are not suggesting it is happening right now.

So check for new connections after you update. Or just firewall the KSP process and be done with it. It's not rocket science.

Edited March 17, 2018 by steve_v

[Cheif Operations Director]

Just now, steve_v said:

So check for new connections after you update. It's not rocket science.

Face palm I'm withdrawing for the night it's been a long week

[YNM]

IMO most of the problems outlined are "technicalities".

We've seen that.

However remote they are, these are loopholes. Fixing them is the only right way out.

[razark]

3 hours ago, steve_v said:

Like I said, standard Unity analytics.

Honestly, I haven't been following the whole conversation.

 

I've been under the assumption that somebody's been watching everything I do for over a decade now, and if they haven't had a problem with me yet, then today's probably not the day it all goes down the drain, especially over a video game.

[Gargamel]

42 minutes ago, razark said:

Honestly, I haven't been following the whole conversation.

 

I've been under the assumption that somebody's been watching everything I do for over a decade now, and if they haven't had a problem with me yet, then today's probably not the day it all goes down the drain, especially over a video game.

I know I've made it on some watch lists...   I once tried to purchase (or at least get a quote on) about 4 kg of depleted Uranium to use in RC boats, and to see how feasible doing so would actually be.    I never got the quote.  :S

[Tutanchamun]

“…the information we collect may include personal information such as your first and/or last name, e-mail address, phone number, photo, mailing address, geolocation, or payment information. In addition, we may collect your age, gender, date of birth, zip code, hardware configuration, console ID, software products played, survey data, purchases, IP address and the systems you have played on. We may combine the information with your personal information and across other computers or devices that you may use.“

Anyone with some brains should react on this paragraph of the EULA alone (this is basically a "do what you want and get of of jail immediately" card). If unsure, consult the spyware article on wikipedia (you'll notice that the examples for spyware in that article are less scary than the mentioned paragraph :-)).

If you disagree, i'm genuinely interested in what constitutes your personal limits what an EULA may ask for (really).

I'd just recommend voting on steam.

@Mods: is it so bad what i am writing that you need to wait until 3 more pages are written before approving?

Edited March 17, 2018 by Tutanchamun
spelling

[iceolator88]

Yep ...

[Piatzin]

I agree with all of you.

In part.

Yes, the EULA has sections that sound worrying and intrusive, and just downright unnecessary for a game like KSP, so in that sense I agree with @Brainlord Mesomorph

However, I do not support the idea that we should jump to conclusions. Just because T2 seemingly has the ability to do things like access our personal data and share it with third party organizations doesn't mean it will. For the most part, things like geolocation and and age/gender seem perfectly fine with me. They make sense, especially if you look at the marketing side of things.

So I won't 'like' the OP's post. I don't think such actions should be taken so soon, especially without evidence that T2 is using the information for ill use. If, in the future, it becomes obvious that T2 is abusing its power, then I'll do something, and start complaining. But as of now, we have nothing but a disconcerting document.

I also think some of you guys are taking each other too seriously. We're all here because we care about what happens to the game, and because we care about the community. I very much doubt that any of us are trying to run the game into the ground, or that we'll be completely fine with actual spyware. The people on the other side of the argument, like you, are members of the KSP community, and, like you, don't want to see the game get killed off or their privacy abused. Just because they see things differently, or because they believe there is little to no cause for alarm doesn't mean they're on the wrong side or that they deserve to be demeaned.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Earthlinger

[steve_v]

Yay, the voice of reason is heard.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

This thread should probably be locked, OP has left; and is apparently never coming back.

The conversation here serves no further purpose. With out it's creator, said petition is defunct.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[steve_v]

5 hours ago, Tutanchamun said:

i'm genuinely interested in what constitutes your personal limits what an EULA may ask for

I don't care what it asks for, because they're not getting it.

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 hour ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

This thread should probably be locked, OP has left; and is apparently never coming back.

The conversation here serves no further purpose. With out it's creator, said petition is defunct.

Is the constitution defunct because George Washington is dead?

[Cheif Operations Director]

To be blunt here are the courses of action I think we should take.

1. Set up a forum watchdog that post random updates this way take two doesn't know when we can scan. This will make them think twice about transmitting sensitive data. 

2. Continue to lobby for a change the EULA.

I Honestly think the watchdog will be a good idea. This way takes two's power is being checked (American Political concepts)  

Anyone dies agree and is anyone willing to do these scans if we start it. Also is it against the new EULA to do it? 

I want the new expansion and I think a watchdog would be a fair compromise.

[Kernel Kraken]

On 3/16/2018 at 2:39 AM, purpleivan said:

I've been reading through this thread and "promised" myself that I wouldn't comment, however I had to when I read what you've said here.

What you've fundementally said is that if you don't agree with the OP, then don't post anything. That's the kind of ridiculous and to be frank, rude and unconstructive statement that I've come to expect on things like conspiracy theory forums. In fact the "Mabye we want to believe what we want to believe" reinforces that.

This is a forum in which civil discourse is exepcted and open to all opinion, not just one side of an argument.

Please don't turn it into something else.

Holy crap, (not being sarcastic) thanks for pointing this out. I just don't like people who try to go slightly off topic and start a flamewar. I still think this is a petition thread and not a 'lets debate about the EULA and argue about spyware' thread. Thanks though, I try to avoid over- doing my opinions to the point of being a conspiracy theorist... 

See this XKCD comic:

https://xkcd.com/258/

I just realized I'm digging myself in a deeper hole, I'll stop typing now.

Edited March 18, 2018 by TheMadKraken2297

[Vanamonde]

A few posts have been trimmed from this thread to keep things on-topic. 

[Cheif Operations Director]

I'm interested now in starting the watchdog thread anyone want to join me? And could someone makethat it is not in violation of the EULA. I don't believe it is but I want a second opinion.

Any funny wording that could mean it 

[Kerbart]

18 hours ago, Tutanchamun said:

“…the information we collect may include personal information such as your first and/or last name, e-mail address, phone number, photo, mailing address, geolocation, or payment information. In addition, we may collect your age, gender, date of birth, zip code, hardware configuration, console ID, software products played, survey data, purchases, IP address and the systems you have played on. We may combine the information with your personal information and across other computers or devices that you may use.“

Anyone with some brains should react on this paragraph of the EULA alone (this is basically a "do what you want and get of of jail immediately" card). If unsure, consult the spyware article on wikipedia (you'll notice that the examples for spyware in that article are less scary than the mentioned paragraph :-)).

If you disagree, i'm genuinely interested in what constitutes your personal limits what an EULA may ask for (really).

• Hardware Configuration: Given that hardware pretty much dictates what software runs properly and what will lag, it's very reasonable for a software company that is collecting data, to collect this kind of data.
• Software Products Played: Similarly, as a vendor you'd like to know which of your products are popular and how much time your customers spend on playing it. Should you put many in game x or game y? A decision much easier to make when you have data on it
• Survey Data: This is shocking. Downright shocking. Survey data is collected instead of left alone? </sarcasm>. What, exactly, do you think the purpose of surveying customers is? Just annoying them?
• Purchases. Imagine that. How else is Squad, or Steam, supposed to keep track of who has the right to download their software, and the DLC? It's a bit hard to do that without tracking who buys what.

First of all, collect does not mean "scraped from your computer." You're on this forum. Squad, and by extension T2, thus has "collected" your email address. Did you upload an avatar somewhere? Now they collected a "photo." Etc, etc. Most of this is data that is actually volunteered, or at least willingly entered by the user in order to have access to the product offered.

Not surprisingly that T2 has a "get out of jail card" in their EULA for storing data about customers that allows them to run a business in the first place. Seriously, do you expect:

• Log on to the webstore and check "I declare honestly that I paid for the product" because Squad has no other way of knowing if you paid for KSP or not?
• Have me contact Squad, tell them "Hey, can you reset the password of Tutanchamun? That's me. I forgot it. KByeThx" as they cannot send you a reset link by email? Because they're not storing your email?
• Cheerfully accept your credit card payment without checking for the right address? Because, well, we can't do that. Just the number is fine. Fraud doesn't exist after all.

Most of the data collected is needed so blindingly obvious that you might ask why it's included in the EULA? Well, because there's always someone who will question why you need to supply a credit card number if you want to buy something online. "I don't like it that you ask me for that. I will send a check!" 

Where I draw the line? When Squad/T2 starts collecting data that is not related to me playing KSP (in case of whatever KSP collects):

• Harvesting emails from my contacts
• Scanning what other software I have installed on my computer
• Disabling firewall/security software to bypass any measure I would have taken to not give them access if I don't want to
• Prevent other software from running on my computer
• Mining Bitcoins
• You get the idea (I hope)

 

[YNM]

36 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

... Not surprisingly that T2 has a "get out of jail card" in their EULA for storing data about customers that allows them to run a business in the first place. ...

Would have some problems in rare cases ?

Here's a highly-respecting example (forget bussiness case, just an expensive joke) :

 

[Cheif Operations Director]

44 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

• Hardware Configuration: Given that hardware pretty much dictates what software runs properly and what will lag, it's very reasonable for a software company that is collecting data, to collect this kind of data.
• Software Products Played: Similarly, as a vendor you'd like to know which of your products are popular and how much time your customers spend on playing it. Should you put many in game x or game y? A decision much easier to make when you have data on it
• Survey Data: This is shocking. Downright shocking. Survey data is collected instead of left alone? </sarcasm>. What, exactly, do you think the purpose of surveying customers is? Just annoying them?
• Purchases. Imagine that. How else is Squad, or Steam, supposed to keep track of who has the right to download their software, and the DLC? It's a bit hard to do that without tracking who buys what.

First of all, collect does not mean "scraped from your computer." You're on this forum. Squad, and by extension T2, thus has "collected" your email address. Did you upload an avatar somewhere? Now they collected a "photo." Etc, etc. Most of this is data that is actually volunteered, or at least willingly entered by the user in order to have access to the product offered.

Not surprisingly that T2 has a "get out of jail card" in their EULA for storing data about customers that allows them to run a business in the first place. Seriously, do you expect:

• Log on to the webstore and check "I declare honestly that I paid for the product" because Squad has no other way of knowing if you paid for KSP or not?
• Have me contact Squad, tell them "Hey, can you reset the password of Tutanchamun? That's me. I forgot it. KByeThx" as they cannot send you a reset link by email? Because they're not storing your email?
• Cheerfully accept your credit card payment without checking for the right address? Because, well, we can't do that. Just the number is fine. Fraud doesn't exist after all.

Most of the data collected is needed so blindingly obvious that you might ask why it's included in the EULA? Well, because there's always someone who will question why you need to supply a credit card number if you want to buy something online. "I don't like it that you ask me for that. I will send a check!" 

Where I draw the line? When Squad/T2 starts collecting data that is not related to me playing KSP (in case of whatever KSP collects):

• Harvesting emails from my contacts
• Scanning what other software I have installed on my computer
• Disabling firewall/security software to bypass any measure I would have taken to not give them access if I don't want to
• Prevent other software from running on my computer
• Mining Bitcoins
• You get the idea (I hope)

 

Yes I agree. What concerns me is they don't have a clause saying that they won't take it unless you submit it. Even though the (probroly) won't mind my computer they don't have a clause saying they won't. It isn't what ther doing now it what they might do. That why I want a randomized watchdog

And why does Take Two need to know my gender age and date of birth if I haven't bought anything from them.

[Beeegs~]

I can concur with this stance, I feel that a game that is literally propped up by its community of mods would just be plain dumb to change its stance on mods so far into the game's history. I would even go as far to say that the developers are "borrowing" mods for the community and the biggest one may be the RemoteTech mod which was it's on mod until the developers made their own extremely similar to the mods features. I would also say some features given by the new 1.4.1 and the new DLC are just repackaged mods with their own stamp on it. I would say that completely wiping mods off Kerbal Space Program would just about kill this game for may given reasons. The biggest is actually how long you can actually play the original content before you look to the community for more content and that's mods. Even myself I played about 10 hours of stock before I got bored and played Interstellar conquest which added another world to KSP, then I migrated to the top of the list, RP-0, extremely hard gameplay and flight and in my opinion the hardest the game can get because it's the closest it can get to reality. Then I tired, recently actually, to play the new update and the DLC and I found it nowhere near as fun as RP-0, I would even go as far as to say that the bug-filled world of RP-0 was a better "game" than the game it was modding. So my conclusion is that the adoption of Take-Two's EULA is extremely thoughtless given that it doesn't consider even game it effects that have a huge mod community. So my recommendation is to make an adaption to Take-Two EULA for just the KSP game and its content so the game can continue to grow as it did before.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Beeegs~

[YNM]

IMO for "borrowing" from mods, that isn't exactly a problem, so long as the implementation is slightly different and the aspect continues to be upgraded. Sometimes these are just fixes to the "reality" that we expect from the game (everyone remembers back when the drag was wrong ? That was corrected in FAR, and later corrected in the base game).

There are games with DLCs which is arguably "mimicking the user-made mods", but they're fine. Case 1, Case 2.

Changing the "freeness" of mods, however, is a bit futile.